Welcome one and all to another TeaDay. So filler up and share what's in your cup today...all day. Be sure to check out what everyone else is sipping as well. You can also share pictures of your TeaDay, we have not had many pictures posted lately here in TD.

Today, we are asked, why do we drink tea? Is it love, is it health, caffeine, a combination?What is most important, what is least important?

BTW, as you have probably noticed, there is an "under construction" forum Tea and Health under the Tea and Teaware category. Look for the opening soon!

This was a hard one. I love it for sure, but decided to answer that it's better then the alternatives. Since I started my tea journey I've cut way back on coffee and other sugary drinks and never drink booze. It's a great alternative to other beverages and makes me feel fantastic.

Having a session of pu'pourri now. I have a jar that's a mix of the loose material from many different pu'erh bings. It's actually pretty good.

Voted for "I love it" because that's why I've gotten so much more into tea in the last couple years. However, it is true that it's way better for me than things I might otherwise be drinking...juice, lemonade, pop... I do still drink the occasional glass of wine though!

I love it, period!...includes all the other explanation:happens to be good for mehas potential health benefitsbetter for me than the alternatives that I WOULDN'T drinkI can drink it purely for the caffeineI happen to like the caffeineCoffee makes me crazyand other: it's the one social, communal and most inclusive thing I enjoy. Almost every other established social thing-- I roll my eyes at or don't understand the value of spending money on. Yeah, tadpoles can roll their beady eyes.

I was just reading excerpts from a new book 'The One Taste of Truth: Zen and the Art of Drinking Tea' and it turns out Japan has a great tea tradition today because 400 years after the Buddhist priest Kukai introduced tea seeds to Japan, via Chinese Buddhist practices, a monk named 'Eisai (1141–1215, who is credited as popularizing tea in Japan)', proclaimed;

"drinking tea would ameliorate the people’s health"... "To that effect, he wrote two treatises: the Kozen gokoku-ron, or The Promotion of Zen and the Protection of the Nation, explaining the benefits of establishing this new sect; and the Kissa yojoki, Drinking Tea and Maintaining Health....The latter short book, written entirely in classical Chinese, is for the most part a practical explanation of why tea drinking promotes health. His approach is a mixture of Confucian philosophy, traditional Chinese medicine, and Shingon symbolism, but his main emphasis is this: the heart is the primary organ of the body, and tea is the heart’s medicine. Everyone should drink tea for a more healthy life."